Attorney General asks court to cut off state employee paychecks

State Attorney General Lisa Madigan filed a motion yesterday asking the court to dissolve the preliminary injunction that ordered state worker paychecks to continue while the Illinois budget was at an impasse.

Madigan asked the St. Clair County Circuit Court to dissolve
the injunction by Feb. 28. This would end the comptroller's ability to issue
paychecks.

Madigan's motion aroused outrage from the union, elected
officials and the Illinois GOP. While Comptroller Susana Mendoza blamed
Gov. Bruce Rauner for the impasse that led to the court ruling, the
governor's spokeswoman Catherine Kelly spoke of a pending bipartisan agreement on the
budget and pledged to defend employee pay.

"While serious bipartisan negotiations have accelerated
in the Senate, it is outrageous that Lisa Madigan tonight decided to put
[state House] Speaker [Mike] Madigan's (D-Chicago) power politics ahead
of hard-working families in an effort to
shut down state government," Illinois Republican Party spokesman Steven
Yaffe said in a prepared statement. "Only a Madigan would try to disrupt
bipartisan momentum in a matter that threatens to cripple government
services
and hurt state workers and their families. Comptroller Mendoza and every
Democrat in the state who claims to be independent of the Madigan
Machine
should immediately denounce these tactics and stand on the side of state
employees and those who depend on them."

The temporary injunction issued in 2014 ordered that all state
employees would be paid their full salaries, including back pay earned between
2011 and 2013.

At that time, the appellate court ruled that the state
employees were owed their wages. The American Federation of State, County and
Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and 12 other union contracts with the state
government overrode the failure of the legislature to appropriate funds. Subsequently, the
state was ordered to pay in full.

"We hold that the arbitrator's award comports with the
overriding public policy of permitting the State to negotiate enforceable
multiyear collective bargaining agreements with unions of state employees, and the
award furthers the express constitutional policy forbidding the General
Assembly from passing any acts, including insufficient appropriations bills,
that impair the obligation of contracts," the appellate judges wrote in
their 2014 decision.

The court upheld the independent arbitrator's decision that
the state had violated the union contract. Madigan appealed, asking the court
to vacate the arbitrator's decision. Instead, the court found in favor of the
arbitrator. It also decided in favor of the union's cross appeal; the state
employees must be paid in full for the wages already earned but withheld by the
state.

"Today's decision is a win for working men and women
who serve all the people of Illinois, caring for the disabled, keeping prisons
safe, maintaining our state parks and much more," AFSCME Council 31
Executive Director Roberta Lynch said in 2014. "Moreover, it's a victory
for a principle of simple fairness for all workers: A contract is a contract,
it means what it says, and no employer — not state government or anyone else — can
unilaterally withhold wages owed."

The case was returned to the St. Clair Circuit Court, which ordered at that time the employees would continue to receive their full paychecks. Madigan's
motion returns the matter to the circuit court. The motion claims
that the Illinois Supreme Court had rejected the argument that not paying wages
was an "unconstitutional impairment of contract," thus the legal
basis of the injunction was not valid and it should be dissolved.

CapitolFax released Lynch's email to the AFSCME members. She assured them that the union is prepared to fight on their behalf.
She also reminded the membership that Rauner had sought to impose an unfavorable
contract upon the state employees and after two years of hostility, to not
believe in his sympathy.

As Lisa Madigan takes the case back to court, the union is preparing
to fight the action. Lynch called for the membership to authorize the
bargaining committee to call a strike. She reminded the union members that
Illinois citizens depend on their work, but they would not be pawns in the
legislature's political games. They will stand together and fight back.

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